For such a slider as described above and as assembled into the plastic zipper, conventionally known is a slider which comprises an inner guide and an outer guide wherein the inner guide is inserted between male and female hooks of the plastic zipper so as to open the hooks upon sliding movement of the slider and wherein the outer guide sandwiches male and female hooks of the plastic zipper so as to close the hooks by sliding movement of the slider.
In patent document 1 (Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 58509/2002), the present inventor proposed an assembling method of the above-mentioned slider by which the slider is easily assembled into a plastic zipper at a high speed and is not fallen off from the plastic zipper formed even on a thin film having less strength.
In the slider assembling method proposed by the present inventor, the inner guide is disposed revolvable around an axis which is crossed at a right angle to the plastic zipper on the body of the slider. At first, the outer guide is expanded and located at a position where the outer guide sandwiches the plastic zipper, thereafter, the inner guide is revolved around the above-mentioned axis and is transferred to a predetermined position inside the outer guide, thus the slider is assembled into the plastic zipper.
Further, in patent document 2 (Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 209841/2004), the present inventor proposed a method for assembling a slider which has such a construction as described above effectively into a plastic zipper.
In the proposed method, the sliders are aligned by means of attachments disposed on the drum-type parts feeder so that the inner guides, disposed rotatably on the slider bodies, direct upwards. At the same time, the sliders are aligned in a line in a tangential direction from the track of the drum of the parts feeder so that the side surfaces of the sliders align in a longitudinal direction of the plastic zipper and they are fed to the slider supply way. Thereafter, pins are inserted into pick up holes formed on an end surface of the outer guide of the slider, i.e., a front surface of the slider when it is transferred into a direction wherein the plastic zipper is open, whereby the outer guide is expanded and is assembled into the plastic zipper.
However, in the above-mentioned slider, an end portion of the outer guide, which receives the rotated inner guide, i.e., an end portion opposite to the surface having the pick up holes formed thereon, is opened so as to receive the inner guide.
Accordingly, in the above-mentioned method wherein the side surfaces of the sliders are aligned in a longitudinal direction of the plastic zipper, when the sliders are fed out, if the sliders directing forwards and the sliders directing backwards are aligned consecutively on the slider supplying way, in the case that open ends of the outer guides of both the sliders face each other, they engage with each other. Then, the sliders are entangled with each other and the movement of the sliders may be disturbed. (Please refer to the paragraph [0008] in patent document 2.
As a result, there occurs a defect that a consecutive assembling operation of the sliders is disturbed.
In order to obviate the defect, patent document 2 proposes a method for supplying sliders wherein as illustrated in FIGS. 5 and 6, a pair of rolls are disposed on the side of slider supplying way, and the sliders are fed out one by one while they are nipped by the pair of rolls. At the same time, the direction of the sliders is detected by a direction detector, and the direction of the slider is converted by a direction convertor so that the direction of the sliders are aligned in a fixed direction, if necessary.
Nevertheless in the slider supplying apparatus, even if the sliders are fed out one by one while they are nipped by the pair of rolls, there may cause clogging when the sliders directing forwards and the sliders directing backwards are aligned consecutively on the slider supplying way before they reach the direction detector or the direction convertor and they engage with each other. Thus, there is a defect that sliders cannot be assembled consecutively for a long time.